The NPR Politics Podcast - The Jan. 6th Committee Voted to Subpoena Donald Trump. So, Now What?

Episode Date: October 13, 2022

The U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol held its final scheduled hearing today. What did we learn, what does it change and what happens next?The former president responded on his social media platform shortly after the hearing concluded, questioning why the committee did not call him to testify sooner.This episode: political correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben, congressional correspondent Claudia Grisales, justice correspondent Ryan Lucas and senior political editor and correspondent Ron Elving.Learn more about upcoming live shows of The NPR Politics Podcast at nprpresents.org.Support the show and unlock sponsor-free listening with a subscription to The NPR Politics Podcast Plus. Learn more at plus.npr.org/politics Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey Atlanta, it's Asma Khalid from the NPR Politics Podcast. We are going to be live on stage doing our show Thursday, October 20th at 8 p.m. at the Buckhead Theater. And we'd love for you to be there. Ticket info is at nprpresents.org. Thanks to our partners, Georgia Public Broadcasting, WABE, and WCLK Jazz. See you there. Hey there, it is the NPR Politics Podcast, and it is 4.22 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, October 13th, 2022. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. I cover politics. I'm Susan Davis. I also cover politics. I'm Ryan Lucas. I cover the Justice Department. And I'm Ron Elving, editor correspondent. We just finished watching the final scheduled meeting of the House committee investigating President Trump's role in the attack on the U.S. Capitol, which many people know simply as the January 6th committee. Today's hearing was a summation of a few allegations that Trump planned in advance to declare victory even if he lost.

If Trump is losing by 10 or 11 o'clock at night, it's going to be even crazier. No, because he's going to sit right there and say they stole. I'm directing the attorney general to shut down all ballot places in all 50 states. It's going to be, no, he's not going out easy. If Biden's winning, Trump is going to do some crazy s***. That was Steve Bannon, one of the former president's close outside advisors. The committee also showed that after the election was called, President Trump acknowledged that he lost to his closest advisors. I remember maybe a week after the election was called, I popped into the Oval just to, like, give the president the headlines and see how he was doing.

And he was looking at the TV and he said, can you believe I lost to this effing guy? That's Alyssa Farah. She was White House director of strategic communications. But as we know, he continued to lie to the public and press his case in court anyway. All of that ultimately culminated, the committee argued, in the January 6th attack on the Capitol, which the president did little to stop once it began. And the hearing ended with a vote to subpoena the former president to testify. So this afternoon, I am offering this resolution that the committee direct the chairman to issue

a subpoena for relevant documents and testimony under oath from Donald John Trump in connection with the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol. That was Committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney of Wyoming. Okay, so let's start with that subpoena I just mentioned. Do we expect the president to appear before the committee? It's highly unlikely, but I'm hesitant to say anything's impossible these days. Lawmakers on the committee have been sort of toying with this idea for months. They've been asked this by reporters for months. Would you ultimately subpoena the president? I think today's hearing is important to be seen as part of sort of the final dissent of this committee. It's leading towards a final report that's expected to come at

the end of the year. The committee dissolves after that. I don't think these lawmakers today did this believing Donald Trump would come testify. Benny Thompson, the Democrat from Mississippi, who is the chair of the committee, said very clearly that the past year of work was examining the actions of the president. And it would lead to believe that hearing from the president is the next logical step in a process, even if the answer to that question is pretty much a foregone conclusion. And it's worth remembering that there are people who were within Trump's inner circle, Steve Bannon being one of them, former advisor, Peter Navarro, Mark Meadows, who were subpoenaed by the committee, were ultimately held in contempt of Congress. Bannon and Navarro were both charged forpoenaed by the committee, were ultimately held in contempt of Congress. Bannon and Navarro were both charged for refusing to cooperate with the committee. Bannon was actually convicted and he's to be sentenced next week. But point being that there is a history of people within Trump's inner circle not cooperating, let alone the president himself.

So he could theoretically then be charged also. And could he serve jail time if he defies a subpoena? There are a lot of bridges we have to cross before we get to anything like that. Fair enough. All right. But beyond the subpoena, there are a few broader goals, it seems, the committee had with these hearings. Let's start with a sort of informative one of highlighting the gravity of January 6th, that not only was there a violent attack on the Capitol, but that it was also an attack on a basic democratic process. So, Ron, I'm curious, do you think the country better understands what happened on January 6th because of these hearings? Yes, I don't think there's any question but that the cumulative effect of

the hearings has been to emphasize the gravity of what happened, the repeated replays of the video of the actual rioters inside the Capitol and the buildup to the riot and the rally and how they were connected and Trump's connection to that. Today, it was a little bit of a question going in whether or not they had a lot of new stuff. They didn't call any witnesses to appear in person before this hearing. It was a little bit of a question as to whether or not they had a last act, but they went into this particular day with a clear theme. Donald Trump planned this in advance. And I'm not sure that that had come through so clearly up to now in these hearings. But that tape we heard at the top of Steve Bannon, he said that in October, late October, to be sure. I believe it was the 31st or thereabouts. And he was talking

to a group of his associates who are Chinese. And he was telling them the inside dope on what to expect on election night and basically telling them Trump has no plans to acknowledge a loss, even if he's lost. He is planning to carry it forward, say it was all a fraud. And we saw everything Bannon predicted in those remarks play out, in fact, and we saw the videotape of it again today. On that note, too, since January 6th, what kinds of actions has Congress taken to safeguard democracy? Are our basic processes any safer? Yeah. I mean, I don't know if the hearings have had a direct relation to it. But since that day, there has been quiet but bipartisan effort to sort of reform the electoral process. Remember, a key tenet of Trump's assertion on that day was that Vice President Mike Pence somehow had the legal authority to overturn the election. He does not have that authority. What Congress has basically come up with with the Electoral Count Act, which is on track to become law in the lame

duck session, would essentially establish that the vice president's role on that day is simply ministerial, that they have zero power to have any weighing in on an election outcome. And it would also raise the bar for lawmakers to raise objections to election outcomes in their states. Now, why is this important? I think most people agree that the existing law led it to some confusion and ability to lead to misinformation about what could happen. And also, frankly, Donald Trump could be the nominee again, right? I mean, it is not an inconceivable conclusion that he's the Republican nominee for president. So I think there was a lot of bipartisan interest, particularly from Republicans in the Senate, particularly from people like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who said, how can we change the process to at

least eliminate the possibility to make those same kind of specious arguments in the future? You know, Ryan, one more goal here was arguably to speed up or push the Justice Department to prosecute Trump and or his allies. Do you think these hearings had any effect on that, either by laying out evidence or just increasing public pressure? So to give you the response that the Attorney General might give, which would be the Justice Department is going to follow the facts in the law and the evidence we will gather and ultimately we'll get to the decision that we make. I think that from a public pressure standpoint, yes, this has certainly provided a public record of what key players were saying, what they knew at certain times between the election and the events of

January 6th. Certainly we've seen Democrats in Congress use this House investigation to publicly pressure the Justice Department to move more swiftly. I will say, though, that there was pressure on the Justice Department several months ago. Adam Schiff, Jamie Raskin, Democratic members of this committee were certainly publicly calling on the Attorney General to do more. What it turned out, though, was that the Justice Department was actively investigating, just they were doing so under the surface. They tend to do things quietly. And I think that what we've seen in the past several weeks or months is more of that investigation become public, that the

Justice Department is looking into slates of fake electors, into the planning and financing of the January 6th rally. So I think that ultimately the Justice Department is going to get wherever it ultimately does based on what it collects on its own, regardless of what this committee has done. All right. We are going to take a quick break. More in a second. And we are back. So we just did the sort of 30,000 foot view of what we saw today. And like we said, a lot of today was about recapping what happened on January 6th. But there was still new evidence that we saw. So I want to ask you all, what are some of the new things we learned that stood out to you all?

And, Sue, what was memorable about today for you? One of the striking new video images that they used today was video of the top congressional leaders, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in the thick of it on January 6, where the leaders had been taken out of the Capitol and put into a secure location. And factually, we kind of know, we knew they were taken from the Capitol, we know they were there, we knew they made calls for help. But actually seeing it was extraordinary to me. There has to be some way we can maintain the sense that people have that there's some security or some confidence that government can function and that we can elect the president of the United States. Did we go back into session?

We did go back into session, but now apparently everybody on the floor is putting on tear gas masks to prepare for a breach. I'm trying to get more information. They're putting on on tear gas masks to prepare for a breach. I'm trying to get more information. They're putting on their tear gas masks. You read about these things, but you never get this bird's eye view into it. And you have a video of Pelosi, of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, of House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer in real time, like calling for help and calling the governor of Virginia, calling the governor of Maryland, calling local police. It was a reminder of the urgency and the fear of that day and that how many of these leaders

also thought that they had left their staffs behind in the building who quite literally were afraid for their lives. You know, if we had forgotten, and maybe no one had, but if you had forgotten why you had respect for Nancy Pelosi, watching that videotape, she is the coolest customer in the Capitol. And she is organizing and she is orchestrating and everyone is looking to her. Republican, Democrat, powerful people, the leaders in both House and Senate are gathered around and it is Nancy Pelosi who is driving. And it is Nancy Pelosi who is driving. And to his credit, Vice President Mike Pence, they had they had image of him on speakerphone with Pelosi plotting to get back in the Capitol that night to certify the election.

And the commitment that Pence and congressional leaders had to doing that was it was striking to actually just see video of it. potential, that they were seeing possible threats. And yet the preparations and the defenses at the Capitol were still lax on that day, which again, goes back to something that we've talked about before, but we do not have an answer to yet at this point in time, which is why these threats were not taken seriously by the Secret Service, why these threats were not taken seriously by the FBI and the US Capitol Police. That's something that people have asked leadership of those agencies about, and we still do not have fulsome answers to them. Sue, I want to talk about what comes next. Liz Cheney today raised the possibility of

criminal referrals. There's also, of course, a report that's coming from the committee. What should we be looking for? Well, the true mandate of the committee is to issue a final report on its findings. This committee is ending at the end of the year, likely one way or another. Once a final report on its findings. This committee is ending at the end of the year, likely one way or another. Once a final report is issued, the committee dissolves shortly thereafter. Or, you know, Republicans are likely to take control of the House. And Kevin McCarthy, the top Republican, has made it very clear that they're not going to continue this investigation. Correct. The final committee, and remember, you know, this has been a year-long investigation.

I think they've taken testimony from something like a thousand witnesses, not heard testimony from at least 30 people, Liz Cheney noted today, millions of documents, and they're going to put it all together in a public report. I think that the intention of this committee and the purpose of this committee was to contribute to the public understanding of what happened on and around January 6th. end, it has been a success. But even if there are criminal referrals, we've said this before, it's worth saying again, Congress doesn't play a role in that. They can just sort of make a suggestion. I think that there has been some debate on the committee whether they should take such an act. I think there has been an interest in making the committee seem nonpartisan or doing something like that could seem overly political. I think Liz Cheney is a person on that committee who has really leaned into this idea that if they believe that the president did actions that were criminal, that the legislative branch should go on record as saying so. Because, as she has said repeatedly, she still thinks that these types of threats to our democracy are not over.

They're still real-time threats. All right, Ron, I want to wrap up with you. In the last few years, we've had multiple hearings that felt momentous. There's the Robert Mueller investigation, as well as Trump's first impeachment hearings. And they were big stories, but they're also kind do these hearings fall more into that camp of sort of forgettable? Or are these something that we're going to be talking about for quite some time? It will depend on whether or not they alter the arc of the work of this committee and because of perhaps a Department of Justice indictment or something along those lines, which will rely on much the same evidence that was brought forward by this committee. Either way, that will certainly put it in the first category, the category of greatest historical importance. Watergate is the ultimate example, of course,

because it brought forth, among other things, a real portrait of what life was like inside the Nixon White House. And we've seen that in terms of the Trump White House. But it also exposed the existence of these tape recordings that became a fixation for many months. And the Justice Department went after them with a special prosecutor, and they went after him in the courts. Eventually, the tape recordings were released and heard, and Richard Nixon had to resign immediately. On the other hand, you could have something like the Mueller Report, where if it depends on reading a four or five hundred page report to really get the picture, that's probably just going to go away

like the Mueller Report did. It has to have something that alters the course of that presidency in order to be truly historic and make the big difference. All right, we are going to leave it there for today. I am Danielle Kurtzleben. I cover politics. I'm Susan Davis. I also cover politics. I'm Ryan Lucas. I cover the Justice Department. And I'm Ron Elving, Editor-Correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.